The One about the Prom Dress !

As you will know from previous posts my gorgeous, clever 16 y/o is in her last year of school and in amongst finishing coursework, revising for GCSEs, trying to get a part time job and generally being a teenager there is the sorting of everything Prom!

Meet Danni :

This event has been 4 years in the planning, ever since she started at Comprehensive. Searching for the all important dress is a major stress so thinking I would save myself from yomping up and down the streets of Brighton with a stroppy 16yo I would troll the internet for a lovely dress - and being tight, save myself a few quids.  In March I presented Danni with a list of bookmarked websites with beautiful dresses on.  After a lot of oo-ing and aaa-ing we she settled on this one.  So off I merrily go, clicking with excitement, confirm payment on Paypal (to be my saviour) and wait 23 days for said item to arrive.

When the order was over the 23 day delivery promise, I decided to email them to find out what was happening - as you do.  Back came an email saying "Your dress will be with you soon" (although the use of the English language was worrying, later found out I was dealing with Customer Services in China)  Great! Email back, yes but when?  Dear Customer - very soon, when you would like it? My reply - as soon as possible, please time is running out & you are now overdue with delivery!

A few days later I received an email to say that the dress was on it's way - 14 days overdue.  The dress duly arrived and with excitement we opened the box to find a yellow diamante & sparkle encrusted dress.  Danni immediately hated the colour, which to be honest was a bit yellow, and you will see above it looks more gold, and the embellishment was very different.  She tried it on, begrudgingly.  You actually needed 3 pairs of hands to do the thing up, and then it was way too tight.

The skirt wasn't as flowing as portrayed on the website, more like stiff netting.  She was quite upset, but I told her not to worry, we'd send it back and do what we should have done at the beginning.

Now the stress fun started.  Quick email to supplier to say that dress wasn't as we'd ordered and it didn't fit properly, asking what we had to do to send it back.

Reply : "Dear Customer - please send photographic evidence of reason for return"

Dear Customer Services Person  how can I photograph my daughter's disappointment?  Oh well here you go, oh and don't forget the dress was 14 days overdue.

"Dear Lesley - don't worry keep the dress and we'll refund you 30%"

"Err no as per your company's Overdue Order policy, I want a full refund "

"Dear Lesley - we can't afford to give you more, we have to pay the dressmaker, the designer, the packer blah blah, and we won't have the dress"

"Yes but your overdue order policy says full refund, buyer to keep dress & suck up pay the postage charge"

"Dear Lesley OK we can offer you 40% refund".

"No I'm sorry full refund or I'm reporting you to Trading Standards"

"Dear Lesley, having referred to Manager we can offer you 50% refund"

"Sorry no, full refund".   Silence then for a few hours and I end up chasing them to find out what is going on - an email from a different CS person - please send back dress & you can have full refund.  Reply straight back yep, great give me the address!  Email from them confirming return address is in Portsmouth - result, not as expensive as China!

So Mr B nips to the Post Office with beautifully repackaged yellow, diamante encrusted dress, pays the £7 posting fee for Guaranteed Next Day Delivery, toddles back home with tracking number which I email to the supplier, as requested, with expected time of delivery which was before 1pm the next day.

I checked the track & trace at 12.30 the next day to find that the parcel was being RETURNED TO SENDER - what?  That's me!  Another email to supplier - what the hell are you playing at?  Whilst waiting for a reply Mr B checked with Post Office that we could get parcel back - yep no problem just wait until tracking says it's back at the depot.  That's a relief - just got to sort out the supplier.  Still no response that evening and in order to off load the stress I set up a claim on Paypal.  Another email requesting response - reply came back a short while later "Dear Customer - please accept full refund" OMG why couldn't they have done that in the first place?

At the time of publishing this rant, I have the refund in my bank account (thanks to Paypal), however the dress is somewhere between home & Belfast, which apparently is where the depot is for undelivered parcels.  Just hope that the dress actually makes it back, luckily I did put a copy of the invoice in the parcel with our address on!

In the meantime we have been shopping and found a lovely dress.  Photos of the big day will follow.